Owing to manufacturing hiccups and false starts Nate and I were not able to put the final version of the M-POW-R REEL™ and Rod Combo to intense testing, at Fletcher Lake Ontario, Canada until August 2014. We had hoped to shoot multiple videos over the four days of fishing for Walleyes and Smallmouth Bass, but nature intervened with solid rain over the first three days. Nonetheless, Nate still averaged over 75 Walleyes per day! We cranked up the drag on the reel and let Nate retrieve all fish (14” – 23”) using only the power of the motor to bring the fish to our boat. No rod “pumping” nor drag adjusting as we really wanted to tax the motor and the reel components. I would not recommend this in normal circumstances. Finally, on the fourth day, the clouds parted enough for us to shoot a couple of videos. In this first video Nate boats what I stated during the video what appeared to be a 19’ to 20” Walleye. Afterwards I measured it and it was a true 23” Walleye.

This video was shot near the end of the fourth day of fishing on Fletcher Lake in Ontario, Canada. Nate boated five of the eight Smallmouth Bass that we caught off of this point. The Smallmouth Bass in this video measured at 18 inches which qualified Nate for a Trophy Waters Hat. One can see that Nate really had his hand full with this spunky Smallmouth. As stated earlier, Nate averaged over 75 Walleyes per day for the four days on this catch and release body of water (excluding fish for shore lunch)

In August of 2012, Nathan and I were testing four motors of various speeds on a prototype spinning reel. The motorized reel that Nate had used for close to 28 years had no real power to retrieve lures or land fish. Nate would raise his spinning rod to the 12 o’clock position, press and hold down the power button on the rod handle and at the same time lower the rod to the 3 o’clock position as the motor retrieved the line to the reel spool.

Most of his fishing was vertical jigging or casting short distances with a float and jig combination. As it turned out, one of the motors (completely different design from the other three) had the power and torque to land a fish with no “rod pumping” needed.

This video was taken to show Jeff Zernov, who was sourcing the motors and other components for this project, just how powerful this motor was and the implications for what was to become the M-POW-R REEL™ project.

After this video was shot, I measured and weighed the fish with a digital scale. It was 19 inches long and weighed 2.07 pounds!